8 Months Old!

by Heather on November 8, 2012

Eight months ago this little boy that is sleeping one room over from me was born. Like he came out of my body. What a miracle!

Needless to say time really has been flying, even more so since it feels like we really just landed here in Little Rock (which we kind of have). Our house is finally unpacked and starting to feel lived in, just in time for Wes to really start moving around! I feel like just yesterday I was hoping and praying that he would start crawling so that we could play and explore more, and now he’s this fully mobile and crazy curious little dude. Now I have to get my snuggles in the middle of the night – this little man isn’t stopping for that anymore!

When Wes was first born I read a million websites and blogs about how babies develop and grow and 8 months just felt so far away. Now I’m seeing what they mean about babies developing personalities – this little guy is really coming into his own! He’s such a stinker, so smart, and he’s so laid back until you try to change his diaper. There’s just no time in his busy schedule to stop and have a diaper change, you know? We get the tears, the arching back, the pushing off of his changing pad and the endless flailing until finally – after I’ve almost twisted both of us into a pretzel – we emerge from his room clean and dry and ready to take on the world.

No, it’s not dramatic at all. Why do you ask?

Let’s talk movement now, shall we? Wes has been a professional rolling man for a couple of months now, but really showed zero interest in crawling until lately. A couple of weeks ago he really started to perfect the army crawl (he does it all on his left side while the right arm is reaching out to grab stuff. So cute), and then literally yesterday he started to get his knees underneath him. I call it the army-caterpillar, and it’s pretty adorable.

But more than anything this little guy likes to stand (assisted obviously) and BOUNCE! Jumping is his favorite thing in the world and I’m convinced that he waits all day for his daddy to get home so that he can fly through the air. And one of my favorite parts of the day is watching his whole face light up when Nate walks in the door – forget about momma, dad’s home! Fun starts now

On the food front he’s just chowing down on pretty much anything and everything. We just started to introduce yogurt last week, and he’s a big fan. His typical food day looks kind of like this:

Breakfast: milk or formula, a cup of YoBaby yogurt, and a handful of puffs
Snack: milk or formula, a cooked egg yolk, and about 1/4 cup of fruit pureed with oatmeal
Lunch: milk or formula, some kind of vegetable baby food
Snack: milk or formula, 1/4 cup cooked sweet potato (I cube it so he can eat it), and beans
Dinner: milk or formula, more veggie puree

We still haven’t introduced meat in any form yet because he doesn’t have teeth and it makes me nervous to think about him trying to gum up a piece of chicken. It’s also kind of gross to think about pureeing it, so I think we’ll likely end up starting out with salmon once we think it’s the right time to start giving him meat or fish. We’ll see – the thing about having a baby is that you learn to not have everything set in stone. It’s made me a lot more flexible and go-with-the-flow, probably an improvement from Type-A Heather!

We are also borrowing a high chair that you strap onto a normal chair, and it’s great to have the freedom to move around the kitchen with Wes close by. Before we had him in a Bumbo and there’s just no way I’d let him hang out without me right next to him just in case. Now I can cook and he can eat and we can play all at the same time! And let’s face it: the dogs love the chair. Bunker does a great job “cleaning” it after every meal!

The dogs are doing great through it all – Wes notices them every time they walk into the room and lights up with this huge grin and squeal. Bunker’s not totally a fan of having his ears or tail grabbed so he generally stays away (until meal time), hanging out by the door with his watchdog face on. Keira on the other hand wants to be around and close by at.all.times. He loves it when she lays by him! I think they’re starting to understand that Wes is a baby human, that he’s OURS, and that he’s not going anywhere. I feel like we do a good job of letting them know how much we love them, though. These pups were our first “kids” after all!

Other happenings include him really starting to study things before he shoves them in his mouth. He’ll take an object and stare at it in his hands, flip it around a couple times and then drool all over it. His favorite toys are plastic water bottles – he goes crazy when he has one! Otherwise he’s always exploring handles and knobs and drawers and really anything he can grab. He loves books – for eating – and tennis balls are a big favorite as well. We have an appointment set up for his 9-month checkup soon, and I’m a little nervous about having a new doctor. We absolutely adored our pediatrician in Colorado and miss her dearly. Hopefully the new doctor will be as wonderful!

I know I say it all the time, but I am so so thankful that God has blessed us with such a sweet, fun, smart and healthy baby boy. I don’t know what I did to deserve this (let’s face it: I didn’t do anything), but I’m so glad to have my two guys. They’re amazing and I am so excited to see what the next month holds for us!